E3 Countdown: Sea of Thieves

Similar to a number of Microsoft franchises and developers, Rare is not the force it once was back in its heyday when they pushed out successful title after successful title on Nintendo consoles. So far this generation, the only title to their name is Kinect Sports Rivals (and some additional help on Killer Instinct), which released back when Xbox Ones came with a Kinect (seems all so long ago now).

Now Rare are back, with their newest swashbuckling IP, a shared-world adventure game (or as Rare lovingly refer to as SWAG) Sea of Thieves. A multiplayer game where players can live out their dreams as being pirates, in a cartoon-esc styled world with treasure, sea battles and plenty of danger, all with your mates right by your side.

After silence for over a year from Rare after releasing Kinect Sport Rivals in 2014, Sea of Thieves was first announced at E3 2015 at Microsoft’s press conference with a tantalising cinematic trailer.

With a slim pickings for Xbox at the moment, it is guaranteed there will be a big showcase of Sea of Thieves at Microsoft’s E3 conference this year, with a good chance of a release date too. Since we haven’t seen much since E3 last year, it will be interesting to see how far the game has come and what new mechanics Rare will have to show on the big stage.

Although there has been no official word on when SoT is coming out, Microsoft’s exclusive lineup (although keep in mind it is coming to Xbox One and Windows 10) has been quite bare in 2017. Along with the fact Rare have been quite open with development and post regular dev updates on their YouTube channel, it seems like has been making steady progress. Plus having been announced two years ago, we think it is a safe bet to release 3Q this year.

When showcased during Microsoft’s E3 conference last year, a key phrase stood out to me. Limitless adventures. With multiplayer being a big focus (even the first official gameplay trailer featured members of their Insider Program playing the game, which you can sign up for here), it sounds like Rare will be aiming to create highly replayable missions or an randomly generated world where new missions and adventures are created for players constantly.

But importantly, what will this missions look like? In a similar vain to No Man’s Sky, Sea of Thieves’ visuals are vibrant and interesting, but will there be substance behind the graphics? More than anything though, we just hope it’ll be as fun as it looks! With the pedigree of Rare behind it, there is a reasonably good chance.

Want to know more about Rare’s upcoming SWAG? Then be sure to check out Mehdi’s preview from when he got hands on with the title at Gamescom last year.